Kounkuey Design Initiative was founded in 2006 by six students at Harvard Graduate School of Design. Despite hailing from various countries and training in diverse disciplines, they had one thing in common – they were all asking how their design talents could be of use to those in greatest need. How could they harness their skills to combat global challenges such as poverty, environmental degradation, and social isolation? This question led them away from the conventional career paths that awaited them, and to Kenya, where co-founder Arthur Adeya is from. Kibera, the largest informal settlement in Nairobi, became the setting for KDI's first of many projects. Though their education had focused on the designer as sole author, the students believed that their design skills would not be useful unless those living in Kibera were actively guiding them. And so it became their goal to deconstruct the traditional designer-client relationship and introduce new voices into the design process. The students sketched out a model of practice which followed a simple pattern: listen, ask, collaborate, and repeat. Thai cofounder Kotch Voraakhom found the perfect name to capture the ethos behind this approach: Kounkuey.After two weeks in Kibera, the students had learned all kinds of things – chief among them that their original question could never be answered in such a short amount of time. Nevertheless, two weeks were enough to plant the seed of KDI, which has since grown into an interdisciplinary firm that combines
to create physical, social, and economic infrastructures that provide the basis for equitable communities.